BARCELONA SUMMIT – Solana tables reform plan

Asked at a Brussels briefing on Monday (11 March) about his radical blueprint for making EU summits more productive, the Union’s foreign policy chief smiled almost apologetically.

“I have floated some ideas,” he shrugged, before giving an extremely vague outline of a report he has submitted to the Barcelona European Council, of which he is secretary-general when wearing his other ‘hat’.

While Solana’s paper is brief and non-prescriptive, EU officials confirmed that it raises the prospect of scrapping the rotating presidency – currently held by his native Spain.

This reflects the views of many, namely that passing the EU’s administrative baton from one state to another every six months could become unwieldy after enlargement.

The sentiments in the report are similar to those expressed in a recent Anglo-German paper on EU reform, signed by Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder.

In particular, Solana’s report presents suggestions on how to stop future summits descending into unseemly squabbling.

This follows the shambles of Nice in 2000, when horse-trading on the division of powers continued until the small hours, and the circus of Laeken last December, when bitter exchanges took place over an issue irrelevant to most people – whether the EU’s new food safety authority should be housed in Parma or Helsinki.

Solana feels that the preparation for summits should be more meticulous, that the delegations attending summits should be much smaller, and that the delegations should no longer have to decide on a raft of dossiers deadlocked in the Council of Ministers.

One Solana aide said the paper is not in any way intended to interfere in the work of the new Convention on Europe’s future.

That body, led by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, will consider fundamental changes to the EU’s treaties.

By contrast, only one of Solana’s suggestions – on changing the presidency system – would require a Treaty amendment.

Solana was first asked by EU leaders at last year’s Göteborg summit to prepare this kind of report.

It was drafted by a team of advisers – officials have confirmed that Solana’s deputy, veteran French diplomat Pierre de Boissieu, was more involved in writing it than the Spaniard.

This was because the latter has been preoccupied with issues in the Middle East, the Balkans and relations with Washington.

A senior official said, though, that the two men “both agree on what the problems and the remedies are”.

EU leaders are due to hold a preliminary discussion on the report over dinner at Barcelona.

However, the real debate on its minutiae is not expected until the Seville summit this June.